Slot machines, video poker machines, keno machines and other electronic gaming devices have seized the majority of casino floor space. Besides being attractive to players, electronic gaming devices are attractive to casinos as they generate substantial revenue and facilitate easy accounting procedures. One overwhelmingly popular wagering game which is implemented in an electronic gaming device is video poker.
The success of video poker is based on many attributes, including ease and speed of play and its large payback parameters (e.g., 93% to 100%). Video poker is generally played as follows: A player first places a wager and then causes the video poker machine to reveal five randomly simulated playing cards from a standard 52-card deck of playing cards. The player is then able to discard any number (i.e., 0-5) of the five cards initially displayed. Then, once the player has selected which cards to hold and discard, the video poker machine randomly replaces the discards with cards remaining in the deck. Based on the poker ranking of the final five cards, the player either loses the wager or is awarded a payout. The amount of the payout increases as a function of the poker ranking as depicted in a pay table of the respective machine. Thus, a straight may pay 20 coins and a full house may pay 45 coins. The highest hand achievable is the “Royal Flush”, which typically pays out 4000 coins on a maximum bet placed on a five coin maximum bet machine.
Many video poker machines allow players to play from 1 to 5 coins. Video poker machines pay out winning hands on a relatively linear relationship to the number of coins played. In other words, with one coin played, a straight may pay out 4 coins, with two coins played the straight may pay out 8 coins, with three coins played the straight may pay out 12 coins, with four coins played the straight may pay out 16 coins and finally with five coins played the straight may pay out 20 coins. However, the payout for a royal flush is increased in a non-linear fashion when five coins are played. Thus, although the linear payout should be 1250 coins for 5 coins played, the payout is typically 4000 coins. Increased payouts encourage players to pursue the royal flush over other possible winning combinations, which favors a casino's bottom line. However, the mathematical probability of a player being dealt a royal flush or drawing a royal flush is approximately 43,000 to one. Therefore, assuming an average player who plays five hands per minute or 300 hands per hour, it would theoretically take 143 hours to hit the royal flush. Playing four hours a day, every day, will compel a player to play over 35 days to hit the royal flush. Of course theoretical and actual play time may vary. Most players, and certainly tourist, do not have the time nor the desire to dedicate such time to hitting the royal flush.
Certain new variations to video poker have reduced the amount of time it takes to hit a royal flush. For example, a game known as TRIPLE PLAY POKER® allows players to play hold cards from a first hand in three separate simultaneously played hands. Thus, three hands can be played in the time it takes to play one hand on a conventional video poker machine. In addition, TRIPLE PLAY POKER® has been augmented to ten, fifty and even one hundred simultaneously played hands. Such an increase in the number of played hands, has naturally reduced the time needed to hit a royal flush. Unfortunately, even with the aforementioned variations, casual players still rarely hit the royal flush. Moreover, in theory, it still costs the same amount of money to hit the royal flush under any of the previous examples.
Regardless of the probability of hitting the royal flush, certain players are known to hit more than their mathematical share of royal flushes. In fact, players talk about the number of royal flushes they have hit with great pride. Normally, the particular video poker game which provided the royal flush is not important to the prideful victor. Therefore, any means for improving the probability of hitting royal flushes is important to such competitors.
Thus, there is a need for a poker based wagering game which provides players with a more realistic opportunity to hit royal flushes with some degree of frequency.